DAMn, is it a motorbike?

DAMn – a magazine on contemporary culture – shows new concepts:

The theme of the newest issue is ‘Urbanology and other things’, and though the reinvention of cities covers a great part of DAMn, most of our attention was caught by the other things. A motorbike from Austria that challenges all ideas you have on this way of transport. The Johammer J1, Austrian e-bike.

It doesn’t roar, it has no emission, it is fully recyclable, it has a large lithium-ion battery as energy source. But most of all it looks different. The back of it looks quite horselike, the front of it not at all: there just is this lonely front wheel that seems detached from the rest. You really have no idea where you would put your luggage and other gear or where to leave a fellow passenger. The J1 seems purely a solo experience. It brings you maximum 200 kilometers from the point you started, and then you have to rest for a while, at least 80 minutes, as battery fills up again.

DAMn concludes that the price precludes a triumphal procession of these vehicles. Indeed the J1 costs about € 19.000, quite a lot of money. And for that you get a thing that brings you from A to B. But: without motorbike feeling, without luggage and without your sweetheart. That may be the Achilles’ heel of the concept.